Journalists to go back on frontline in Iraq

Sig Christenson wants to be the next Ernie Pyle, the legendary reporter who chronicled World War II by focusing on the experiences of typical soldiers that he lived with and accompanied into battle.

Christenson, a military writer at the San Antonio Express-News for the past six years, says the stories of GIs have been largely absent from media coverage of recent conflicts because reporters were kept far from the frontlines. He's confident that won't happen again if the United States goes to war with Iraq because he and hundreds of other journalists will accompany U.S. forces -- with the Pentagon's blessing.

But some veteran war correspondents are skeptical of the new government program to "embed" journalists in troop units. "I have trepidations ... There's a pretty fine line between being embedded and being entombed," said CBS News anchorman Dan Rather, who has reported on wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf in 1991. Rather worries the media may have forfeited their independence in return for access to the trenches. "The best story in the world is not worth a damn unless you can get it out," he said.

As writers, photographers and broadcasters traveled over the weekend to the Middle East to join the detachments they have been assigned to, a debate is raging in media circles about the trade-off between access and complying with the many restrictions imposed by the high command. For example, journalists may have to wait days to file dispatches so that their transmissions don't give away the troops' position.

Never before, according to officials, have so many journalists -- more than 500 -- been given such wide-ranging access to U.S. military operations.

Christenson, co-founder of Military Reporters & Editors, a group that has lobbied for greater access, said the critics of embedding are wrong. "We didn't know a damn thing in Afghanistan about what our troops were doing, the conditions they were living in," he said. "Are we supposed to know nothing again?"

Christenson and other reporters interviewed see embedding as a unique opportunity to convey the troops' perspective on war as Thomas Paine did in the American Revolution and David Halberstam in the Vietnam War. Some journalists, including Pyle, also have died while covering conflicts.

"All the rules sound reasonable to me ... I'm going to err on the side of believing they have a good reason for what they are doing," Christenson said in an interview before leaving for Kuwait to meet up with an infantry division.

The Pentagon's decision to permit hundreds of reporters to accompany U.S. forces should there be a war with Iraq comes after decades of exclusion. Last year's conflict in Afghanistan was covered largely from briefing rooms in Washington and the remote mountain headquarters of various Afghan warlords.

"The military cannot afford to repeat this media debacle where it tried to shut out the media and totally control information," said Dow Smith, director of the military visual journalism program at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. "If the media doesn't trust the military, then the public will start to lose confidence in our military," he said.

Vivid coverage of the Vietnam War ended press access to GIs. Many at the Pentagon blamed TV images of wounded Vietnamese women and children and paratroopers burning villages with bolstering the antiwar movement.

But Smith, who was a Navy public information officer in Vietnam, disagreed, saying "a lack of political candor and a failed strategy, as well as unacceptable casualties, turned the public against the Vietnam War."

Journalism experts credited the recent thaw in relations between generals and reporters to Al Jazeera, the new and widely watched Arab television network, and the explosion of media outlets because of the Internet.

Neither is mentioned in Pentagon guidelines for embedding journalists with troop units. However, the regulations emphasize that "media coverage of any future operation will, to a large extent, shape public opinion" in the United States and elsewhere and thus "can affect the durability of our coalition" with allies.

The top brass also hopes having independent observers will help to refute anticipated Iraqi allegations of atrocities by U.S. forces. "We're expecting to show our story very clearly, very openly," said Air Force Lt. Col. Michael T. Halbig, a Defense Department spokesman. "We think when that happens all that disinformation will be countered."

Once with a military unit, the reporters won't be allowed to come and go as they please, according to regulations. Reporters also must use vehicles provided by the Defense Department, are barred from carrying firearms and will be provided the same food and accommodations as the average soldier, sailor or pilot.

Journalists must agree to and sign the list of regulations before joining a unit. The prohibitions center on not reporting information that would endanger the safety of troops and the security of operations.

"There will be a lot of discretion for the individual commander about how much access you get," said Mark Mazzetti, a defense correspondent at U.S. News & World Report magazine.

"If you get a good commander who trusts the press not to report things that could get people killed, then it could be a very good arrangement. If you have a commander who distrusts the press, then it's going to be a little bit of a train wreck," said Mazzetti, who has spent the past two years covering the Pentagon.